AS I HAD INDICATED TO Sparks, the town had quieted down to a murmur, although growth and new life seemed represented by the construction of the smelter and refinery. I took heart from that, telling myself that the development of one full-fledged industry would invite others.
In its current unbalanced state the city was showing few of the features I had hoped it would have. All things considered, I nevertheless argued, the trends embodied a more solid approach to municipal greatness than by trying to achieve it in one jump from the hectic beginnings of a boom town. Pursuing a kindred line of philosophy, I felt that Dead Warrior could hold its head up in the face of the criticisms offered by Rogue River Pete and Short-fuse. Justified in themselves, these were no more than saying that a frontier camp had ceased to have that status and the attitudes that went with it.
I developed other wisdoms. Making myself see that I had been boyishly eager to have everything happen all at once, I began to make book with impatience. If the pace of my life had slowed, I was still publisher of the town’s only daily. As such, I could do a lot for Dead Warrior, working for the old goals but computing by years instead of weeks.
My personal life also had to be molded on new lines, and in this direction, at least, progress was perceptible. Faith and I were not engaged, but we were seeing each other with increasing frequency. At some time I knew myself bound to say the unretractable, and I thought I would be accepted. Settling down with such a wife — herself adapted by nature to the new order of things — appeared just one more inevitability of Dead Warrior, the copper city.
I was sprucing up for a call upon the Fosters when Stewart Jenkins, my news editor, came to see me. “The city commission just got back in town,” he announced.
His wide, brown eyes showed excitement, but then he was one of those newspapermen who react to every reasonably big story as though it were the fall of the Bastille. Schooling his callow enthusiasm, I led him into my bedroom and finished putting cufflinks in a clean shirt before I spoke.
“Did they get the charter?”
“Sure they did. Bedlington was with them, and he pulls a lot of Republican weight, you know.”
“I do know, and having discovered that he was called in to pull it, I wasn’t really worried about the outcome.” That said, I started considering what tie I should wear. “Well, well, Dead Warrior’s a legally recognized city at long last.”
“Er — not exactly,” Jenkins said. Instead of explaining what he meant, however, he apparently shifted to another topic. “Did you know that the church groups have been wanting a new name for this town?”
“Yes, they want one that doesn’t sound so barbaric and that won’t be associated with half the shenanigans which have taken place in the West.” My shoes needed dusting, and I picked up my discarded shirt. “They won’t get anywhere, though. They may have lots of influence with the wardens of Heaven, but they’re no better than deuces with the U. S. Post Office Department.”
“You aren’t listening to me,” Jenkins complained. “The city commission guys all sing in one choir or another themselves; and I guess they must have talked to Bedlington, who put enough into the Republican national campaign fund to own anyhow the right arm of a cabinet member.”
Forgetting about my shoes, I walked over to where Stewart sat sprawled in a chair. “Do you mean to say that that slug has actually written the Postmaster General for authority to change the name of this town?”
“I mean he wired him and got an answer.” Fascinated by news but having no interest in its significance, Jenkins was nonchalant, now that he had broken his story. “The city commission played it right, though, so we get the scoop on the business. They got the Governor to keep mum about the change of names until we hold some sort of ceremony here. I was talking to Bradford — ”
At that point he stopped speaking, because I had grabbed him by the arm. “The new name, damn it! What did those dollar-hearted straddlebugs decide to call my town?”
“Take it easy, Baltimore. It’s going to be the same place, no matter what’s on the railroad station.” Stewart freed himself from my grip and rose. “That’ll be Horaceville, incidentally.”
“You’re fooling!” I accused.
“No, really; and I don’t think it was all due to vanity on Bedlington’s part. Bradford told me that he and the others felt it was due him, for putting up the capital for all the new operations, you know; and for quotation purposes he added that ‘Horaceville will admirably represent the spirit of the city from now on.’”
I did not visit the Fosters that evening. For hours after Jenkins had left me I sat unmoving in my living room. It grew dark, but I didn’t need light. I was seeing Horaceville.
Without the name “Dead Warrior” and all the associations it had for me, the place in which I lived stood pitilessly revealed. It was not a developing city but a provincial town, whose great days were all yesterdays. Actually it wasn’t even a provincial town in the normal sense. It was a company town, its only real function to provide homes, shopping facilities and services for the men who worked for the Horace A. Bedlington Corporation.
It was a town which would produce great wealth without hope of profiting thereby. All its treasure would be drained off to Philadelphia, to be distributed and pocketed by stockholders on the Eastern seaboard. Splendid cities this wealth might help to build; but they would not stand in Arizona, while those who had the spending of its riches would neither know nor care about a drab industrial community on Sometimes Creek, formerly known as Dead Warrior.
Yet the full enormity of it all did not come home to me until Jenkins handed me a proof the next morning. “Horaceville Vigilante doesn’t sound so good,” Stewart said. “Of course, that’s up to you, but I was wondering if we hadn’t better call the sheet something else. How about the Horaceville Herald?”
“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Have you got the information about that name-changing ceremony yet?”
“Yes, I talked to Bradford a few minutes ago. They’re going to hold it at two o’clock at the post office, with Bedlington himself on deck. What they’ve worked out is an unveiling of the new name, which is being painted on the glass front of the P. O. now. Here are my notes on the details.”
I studied them, but I was still considering the words, “Horaceville Herald.” It hadn’t been borne in on me before that I would be the publisher of a kept town’s newspaper, the voice of a community whose only policies could be those of the company upon which it depended for existence.
“Bradford says that he thinks it would be nice if you, as publisher of the town’s only real news rag, would show up in person,” Stewart remarked, when I handed the notes back to him.
“I’ll be there,” I said. “But use the old name for this issue, as Horaceville won’t be official until after the ceremony.”
As soon as he was busy writing the story of what was to take place, I took my revolver from the desk, slipped it in my pocket, and walked out. I went to the post office, where a painter was at work behind a canvas curtain, so rigged that it could be pulled aside. Mail from the East was being distributed, and among several communications for me there was one from Dr. Hatfield. I stared dumbfounded at the architect’s bill which was enclosed, then I laughed.
Securing a rig, I stocked up with some food staples, tobacco and whiskey. I stopped at the Paradise Enow for the best-tasting drink of liquor since Randy Sutton had mistaken his target and then went on to the bank. Drawing out a few hundred dollars, and obtaining some personal papers I had left there for safe-keeping, I next crossed the street to Bradford’s store, housed in the building once known as the Happy Hunting Ground. Purchasing saddlebags, I drove down to where Sam was watching cattle being prodded up a loading chute.
“My affairs are easily settled,” I told him over the lunch table. “This deed gives Seth my copper claim, so he’ll at least have some stake in mining again. I told Doc Hatfield that I’d foot the architect’s bill before I had any accurate idea of what New York firms charge for making incomprehensible lines on paper. I found out in a statement I received today, which I’m herewith turning over to you. My share in the newspaper, the water works and the cattle feeding operation should cover it, though I’m giving you power of attorney to use some money that’s left in the bank if it’s needed. Handle it any way you want to and save the residue for young Sam when he comes along.”
Examining the bill I had handed him, Sam whistled. “The not-yet-born pride of the Wheelers will be an architect, and I thank you for letting me know that such larceny is legal. Let’s see; we owe something on the shell of that theater you wanted, but I can get enough out of the sale of the property to cover it. What about your house and so on?”
“Oh, sell it and keep the change, and give the books I leave to the library.”
“I’ll pinch a few for keepsakes, Baltimore.” Sam inspected me with genial interest. “When I heard about ‘Horaceville’ this morning I was wondering when the explosion was going to frighten the echoes. I can be the fox that steals the chickens and people can’t tell me from the dog that guards them, but you have no hiding place; and I happily predict that you’ll be in an uproar all your life. Are you going to kidnap the preacher’s daughter?”
“I’ll see her at the ceremony,” I said.
Returning the rig to the livery stable, I rode Spanish Monte to my house, packed my saddlebags, filled my canteen and shoved my rifle in its boot. I was humming to myself as I strode back inside, to make sure I hadn’t left anything I really wanted.
The humming was toneless to match my feelings, but the moment of severance generated a certain harsh pleasure, and I let it find expression in dramatizing finality. I jerked dresser drawers all the way out and let them drop to the floor. I kicked over any piece of furniture I happened to find in my path. And when I picked up anything, in order to appraise it, I flung it from me, to fall where it might. It was this practice, indeed, which netted the one reward of my final search. While an old pair of trousers was in midair, something fell from it which I caught up with a yelp of satisfaction. It was a Dead Warrior doubloon, and with its finding, I looked no farther.
Later I would transfer it to a hip holster, but my newly oiled and loaded pistol was out of sight under my jacket when I hitched Spanish Monte nearby and rattled my spurs along the boardwalk toward the post office. There was a fair crowd when I arrived, though not a representative one.
The miners were not interested in the forthcoming function, and many others were busy at that hour. The Ladies’ Progressive Community Group was there in strength, however, and quite a few of Apache Street’s merchants were on hand. Bradford, as the mayor-to-be, was master of ceremonies; and Sparks, as marshal-to-be, was there to control a singularly peaceful gathering. Bedlington was there, to acknowledge the honor being done him. The Reverend Foster was there, to speak a benediction. Faith stood beside him, looking very pretty in a new hat with flowers on it. She waved to me, but as I was not a member of the official party, I could do no more than smile in return.
Stephen Holt started the oratory by explaining what a forward step the town was taking in dropping a name which had come to symbolize frontier crudity and adopting one which would be recognized everywhere as a synonym for brilliant industrial progress. The Reverend Foster next took over to assure the audience that God heartily approved of what was being done. Then Bradford came forward with the guest of honor.
Holt and Foster hadn’t left Eben much in the way of unused compliments, and in any case it was not in his nature to fawn. What he could see was that the trade of Apache Street merchants had been assured by the Horace A. Bedlington Corporation, which would supply large, regular payrolls indefinitely, and that Bedlington himself was the man who had made commercial stability possible. He said so briefly and left the field to the tycoon himself.
It had not dawned on Bradford that he had become a minion of Bedlington’s, and perhaps it never would, but the financier knew himself lord of all there. Despising him, I had to admit that he was superb. He was dressed to emphasize the space between the peerage and rustics. He did not act condescending, however, not feeling the need to stress such an obvious thing as his superiority. He was at ease and affable. When he jested, he bore with the roars of following laughter gracefully. Nor was he insincere when saying that he was pleased at the honor being done him. He knew there was more money to be made out of men who were satisfied with their lot.
“And now,” he said in conclusion, “if I understand my instructions correctly, I am supposed to usher in a new era simply by pushing aside the curtain in front of the post office window here. Let us see if it works.”
When he moved, so did I, stepping a couple of paces clear of the encircling throng. I watched the curtain sliding back to show the big expanse of glass, freshly gilded with letters. My hand darted under my jacket. The clapping which had started was drowned out by the sound of my shot. The enthusiastic murmurs changed to cries of dismay, when the glass shattered under the impact of a bullet.
Bedlington stood gazing at the great jagged hole, as though he were looking at a map and failed to find Philadelphia. Everybody else seemed likewise too amazed to do anything but stare. Not waiting for comment, I began walking to where Faith stood, clutching the arm of her father.
Bradford was the first to recover. My act of vandalism was unbelievable to him, but he glimpsed my motive.
“You didn’t have any right to do that just because you don’t like the name ‘Horaceville,’” he reproached me.
“This place is Dead Warrior, as long as I’m here, but that will only be for a few minutes,” I rasped. “What do you want, Roy?”
“Well,” Sparks said, “I ain’t a man to play favorites with an old friend, so I was goin’ to arrest you. But as long as you say you’re leavin’ town, I’ll let it go this time.”
Shouldering by him, I advanced toward Miss Foster and bowed. “Faith,” I said, trying to speak gently, out of my liking for her, in spite of all the turbulence churning inside me, “I won’t be able to go driving with you Sunday.”
The smashed glass had also shattered her concept of me as a suitable husband. The belle of a town well stocked with young engineers and other eligible bachelors, she didn’t need me. That pride of unassailable position was in her look, which also contained vexation and just a glint of horrified amusement. Her words expressed none of these emotions, though.
“Why, you can’t abandon all your businesses and property.”
“Misfortune has dogged me today,” I told her. “I had to give them all up.”
If she had had any lingering hopes of me, they vanished then. “Quit standing there looking hangdog, when you’re really as pleased with yourself as a boy that’s been stealing melons,” she ordered. “I don’t know why I — oh, go on away, Mosby.”
Nobody else had any kind of word for me, as the crowd made an aisle to let an alien pass from their midst. Unhitching Spanish Monte, I rode past the Vigilante’s office. I rode past the alley whence Terry and I had peered to watch the progress of the raiders from the range. I rode to the corner of Apache and Beaver Lodge, where Barringer and I had had our last meeting.
I turned east up Beaver Lodge, with my back toward the Anything Goes Variety Hall. I rode past the old Carruthers and Wheeler stage and freight depot, and the theater that would never be finished. I rode out on the mesa, where the works of a copper mining company marked the grave of an Indian I had killed.
I rode past boot hill and the graves of Slim Sanders and Rogue River Pete. I rode past the mining hoist from which Ace Ferguson had been cut down, that he might tour the saloons. I rode past the race track where, as Bet-a-gal Baltimore, I had lost Evalinda deVere to Dick Jackson.
I looked up once at the dying palms, forlorn on the empty campus of the university. I did not look back at the town because nothing was left of what had once been there. The winds which moaned through Three Deuces swept past healthier signs of life than were to be found in Horaceville. The houses below the cliffs of the Rinkatinks were not the shells of barnacles but the ripples left by free swimmers.
Subduing me as I went was the consciousness of defeat, throttled aspiration and of great energies spilled out on emptiness. Mixed with these, though, were feelings of a different kind. Hand in hand with the sense of loss was one of possession. The great bonanza had produced things which even Bedlington, that perverse Midas, could not bury under copper. Then, too, I knew Jonah’s wry-mouthed triumph. A sojourn in the entrails of leviathan had convinced both it as well as myself that we were not for each other, and I was a man at large.
In keeping with their nature and my own these volatile spirits started to work their way to the surface, as I rode around the north shoulder of Beaver Lodge Butte and could see the tree-clad mountains towering against the horizon. I had been pushing Spanish Monte up to that moment. Now I slowed him to an amble and breathed deeply.
After a minute or so I laughed; but it didn’t yet feel right, though mirth of a sort was flickering like heat lightning in the outskirts of my spirit. Noise of some kind I had to make, however, in order to alleviate my burden of emotional steam; and suddenly the words of a song rose up in my throat. It was the rolling saddle chant which Dolly had sung, following her dinner in honor of Droop-eye. Swaying from side to side with its split rhythm, I made a scandalized coyote break from cover by roaring it out.
Tom Harrigan got feeling right
And rode a shooting star one night,
One thirty hands and a finger high,
The beat of any in the sky.
Except that I wanted the cool greenery of the mountains as a refresher, I wouldn’t know my destination till I found it. That didn’t matter. I didn’t have to know where I was going, for I knew where I lived. I was the last inhabitant of the ghost town of Dead Warrior, and as such I bellowed out the rest of Dolly’s song about the man who had treated himself to the experience of riding a meteor.
But then it fell and burned to snuff —
To walk in boots is middling rough,
But all Tom said as he limped through space
Was, “We’d have won in a shorter race.”